Exploring Lean HRM Practices in the Aerospace Industry

Abstract

Lean places people at its core, acknowledging their contribution to the company’s growth and the fundamental role human resources management (HRM) practices play in the success and sustainability of Lean transformations. However, the relationship between HRM practices and Lean remains largely unexplored in the literature. The purpose of this work is therefore to investigate the challenges and contributions of HRM practices in a Lean company, and identify those practices that are required for successful and sustainable Lean implementations. Based on a sample of thirty employees (15 production and 15 office workers) of a Canadian aerospace company who participated in our interviews, we performed a qualitative analysis to identify prominent HRM practices. We found seven HRM practices that are of major importance in the context of Lean (i.e., job security, communication, fairness, supervisor/manager support, training, occupational health and safety, and respect). Our findings show that these practices are equally relevant to both production and office workers, and suggest that managers play a decisive role in implementing these practices, and in providing the right environment to effectively promote workforce commitment.